Horrendous. An indictment not only of religious hysteria but our flawed justice system. For those unfamiliar with this modern literal witch-hunt phenomenon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse. Basically a perfect storm of fundie Christianity, misdirected concern about child abuse and pseudo-science.

The result was over a decade of investigation that wasted monetary and law enforcement resources on chasing non-existent cults. In this particular case, Fran and Dan Keller spent two decades in prison, convicted of taking part in horrific child abuse. Child abusers are almost universally loathed by other prisoners; they are frequently abused themselves and even murdered. I can't begin to imagine what these people endured.

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Live a good life... If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid.--Marcus Aurelius

Yep. I've read in the past (recent past, like late 20th cent.) entire communities participating on their belief it is true rather than any actual evidence to support it. And people, who are innocent, pay with their lives just so these people can continue to feel safe and unafraid yet they are the ones who make themselves unsafe and fearful. It's not their fault, in their minds, it must lay with others.

Sound like anyone here we know?

-Nam

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Quote from: David Garrett Arnold

there are oceans of words aged in prayer,against geometric lines, and cloudbeaten skies;credulous allure—slowly captivated in hearts fair—trees and flowers bloomed in grace upon one's eyes.

I am not sure if this is the same case, but I read about one where they (the police and community) actually convinced a guy that he had done "satanic rituals" when he hadn't. He confessed that he had no memory of ever doing anything he was accused of--including torturing children plus medieval sh!t like flying and having sex with demons. He finally told them to lock him away for the safety of the kids in the community....

When people ask "what is the harm" if people believe in magic and religion, we can point to stuff like this.

If people are conditioned to think that magic is real and conspiracy is everywhere, we are just a nude away from inquisitions and witch trials.

The weird thing is that I noticed in the mid 80s that the talk show circuit people who claimed; "I was abducted by Satanists," "I was raped by Satanists," "D and D is a tool of Satanists that corrupted my children," and "I was a Satanist and participated in hundreds of Ritual Murders" were the very same people on different shows claiming completely contradictory things. I still wonder why didn't the Producers of Sally Jesse Raphael, The Phil Donahue Show, Montell Williams, Morton Downey Junior, and so on never noticed.

« Last Edit: February 03, 2014, 03:22:06 PM by Hatter23 »

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An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

I remember these accusations going around all over the country. Satanic rituals performed at daycare centers. The claims got more and more bizarre. But the mantra of the era was "children don't lie about these things." And all of the experts agreed.

Here is a fascinating article about the folks accused and imprisoned in this case.

The story starts out with a 3 year old girl telling her mom that her daycare provider had pooped on her head, and poked her pee pee area with a pen. The kid, who apparently had outstanding issues to begin with, was on her way to see her therapist. The therapist was very interested, and asked the kid more and more questions. In the days and weeks that followed, two other toddlers chimed in, talking about blood being poured in kool aid and being forced to dismember cats and dogs and even a baby. The children also reported being put on an airplane, several times, flown to Mexico, where they were sexually abused, and then returned to the daycare center in time for mom and dad to pick them up.

Now, I just have to state that before I was a mom, I KNEW for a fact that no child of mine would ever be obsessed with poop and pee.

But I was wrong. My kid, at 3, talked about poop and pee all the time. Sometimes indignantly. Sometimes as a joke. She often came home with stories pertaining to poop and pee. If my daughter, at that age, had reported that her daycare provider had "pooped on her head," quite frankly, I would not have believed it. Now child abuse is real, and it happens, and if she reported being poked with a pen in her vaginal area, I would have gotten concerned. But 3 year olds talk about poop and pee pee and they are fascinated by their genitals, and they talk about this stuff much more than most parents are willing to admit.

And then there is this whole "children don't lie" stuff. Again, I would have sworn to you that my daughter would never lie to me. But kids have a real active fantasy life. They just do.

I remember one day picking up my then 2 1/2 year old daughter from daycare. It was a snowy day, and I asked her if she had gone out to play in the deep snow. Yes! she exclaimed. I was delighted that the grandmotherly daycare provider had taken the 4 or 5 kids out in the snow. My daughter went on to tell me that they had a snow ball fight, and they built a snowman, and they even made snow angels. I looked down at her cotton pants, (I hadn't put her in snowpants that day) and they were not wet or dirty. Snow angels?

The story seemed a bit improbable. But it went on. I asked her WHO had gone out in the snow, (some kids arrived much later than others) and she said that she had gone out with another 2 year old and a 3 year old. I asked about the daycare provider, and an older boy. No my daughter explained. They had stayed upstairs making lunch. Soup. She went on with more very specific details.

Now I KNOW that my daycare provider had not sent 3 toddlers out onto an urban street, unaccompanied, to play in the snow. 3 toddlers who somehow managed to not even get dirty or wet.

Kids make up stories. I don't see how anyone with kids, or anyone who works professionally with kids, can claim that kids don't make up stories.

Again, abuse, neglect, and even sexual abuse are real. They happen. But when the stories of abuse start with the daycare provider pooping on the toddler's head, and end with frequent same-day round trip flights to Mexico, and being forced to dismember babies, I cannot imagine a parent or a child professional who doesn't suspect some fantasy story telling going on.

My heart aches for these people, who lost decades of their lives because of this witch hunt.

Kids are intrigued by sex and things that seem to shock adults. When my daughter and her cousin were toddlers, they could talk for hours on the incredibly interesting topics of poop, pee, diapers and private parts. I remember one road trip where they just said "poopy diaper" back and forth to each other and giggled like they were channeling the Riddler. (Love me some Frank Gorshin.)

.

And my daughter made up incredible stories--she had the entire daycare staff thinking I was busy giving birth to other children. One lady actually asked me when I was due. All because my daughter had created very realistic imaginary sisterfriends with distinct names and personalities. (Turns out that only children do that a lot.)

And on the child abuse thing, what makes me so sad about the satanic accusations is that they were so silly and extreme that for a while it made it that much harder for people to believe kids who told about real abuse. I was a social worker during this time period. People went from being conspiracy nuts, believing anything a kid said no matter how outrageous, to assuming all kids were making stuff up and there was no abuse going on.

Children do lie; some is innocent fantasizing, some is more targeted.[1] How about some rational, critical thinking and careful, professional investigation? The same thing we atheists want in terms of fantastic claims of any kind. If it had not been for gullible religious folks expecting actual demons to jump out and molest their kids, nobody would ever have gone to jail for something so ridiculous as witchcraft and devil worship. People's lives were ruined as if it was 1580, not 1980.

Although the "Satanic ritual" hysteria has died down, looking at a couple of other threads here, it seems to have morphed into more of a "Satanic conspiracy" thing over the past few years. All sorts of tinfoil-hat-worthy stories of End times, Antichrists and Illuminati with top government figures of many major powers involved.

Although the "Satanic ritual" hysteria has died down, looking at a couple of other threads here, it seems to have morphed into more of a "Satanic conspiracy" thing over the past few years. All sorts of tinfoil-hat-worthy stories of End times, Antichrists and Illuminati with top government figures of many major powers involved.

Shhhh! skeptic my read this.

-Nam

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Quote from: David Garrett Arnold

there are oceans of words aged in prayer,against geometric lines, and cloudbeaten skies;credulous allure—slowly captivated in hearts fair—trees and flowers bloomed in grace upon one's eyes.